Historical Spartacus

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Below is a compilation of all the historical sources for the Third Servile War aka War of Spartacus and Gladiator War. They are arranged in roughly chronological order of when they were written. Some further links that may be of interest:

[3.64][3.96M] They hardened their spears with fire which,
apart from the appearance which is necessary for war, could do almost as much
harm as iron. But, while the fugitive slaves were engaged in these activities,
some of the [Roman] soldiers were ill from the oppressive autumn climate; none
had come back from the previous rout, even though they had been sternly ordered
to return; and those who remained were shamelessly avoiding their military
duties. Varinius sent his quaestor
C. Thoranius to Rome, so that they could easily learn the real state of affairs
from him there. Meanwhile he took those soldiers who were willing to follow
him, four thousand in number, and encamped near [the slaves], surrounding his
camp with a rampart, ditch and huge fortifications. The slaves had used up all
their provisions, and wanted to avoid attack from the nearby enemy while they
were foraging. They used to keep watches and stand guard and carry out the
other duties of regular soldiers. About the second watch [of the night] they
all went out of their camp in silence, leaving behind one trumpeter. To give
the appearance of guards to anyone in the distance, they propped up the bodies
of men who had recently been killed on stakes outside the gate, and lit many
fires, which would be enough to frighten off Varinius' soldiers . . . their
journey . . . [ 4 lines missing ] . . . they turned onto an impassable
route. But Varinius, when it was now fully light, noticed the absence of the
slaves' usual taunts, of the showers of stones thrown into the camp, and of the
shouts and din of men [rushing all around]. He sent his cavalry up [a hill
which rose] nearby, to seek out and quickly [pursue the enemy]. He himself,
although he believed that [the slaves had gone] far away, was still afraid [of
an ambush], and [withdrew in a secure] formation, in order to double his army
[with new recruits]. But . . . Cumae . . . [ 5 lines
missing ] . . . #
[After] a few days, our men became more confident than usual and there was some
swaggering talk. This prompted Varinius to move rashly against a known danger
with soldiers who were new, untried, and daunted by the disasters which the
others had suffered. He led them at full speed against the slaves' camp, but
now they were quiet and did not enter battle as boastfully as they had
previously demanded it. But [the slaves] were almost at blows with each other,
because they could not agree on a plan of action; Crixus and his fellow Gauls and Germans wanted to go
out to confront [the Romans] and offer battle, while Spartacus [argued against
attacking them].

95:2 (73 BC) Seventy-four
gladiators escaped from the school of Lentulus at Capua, gathered a large
number of slaves and workhouse prisoners, began a war under command of Crixus
and Spartacus, and defeated the army of praetor Publius Varenus and his deputy
Claudius Pulcher.

96:6 Proconsul Gaius
Cassius and praetor Gnaeus Manlius unsuccessfully fought against Spartacus, and
the war was confined to praetor Marcus Crassus.

97:1 (71 BC) Praetor Marcus Crassus first fought
victoriously with a part of the runaways, mainly Gauls and Germans, and killed
35,000 of them, including their leaders Castus and Gannicus. Then he
completely defeated Spartacus, who was killed with 60,000 people

1
The insurrection of the gladiators and their devastation of Italy, which is
generally called the war of Spartacus, had its origin as follows.
A certain Lentulus Batiatus had a school of gladiators at Capua, most of
whom were Gauls and Thracians. Through no misconduct of theirs, but owing to
the injustice of their owner, they were kept in close confinement and reserved
for gladiatorial combats.

2 Two hundred of these planned to make
their escape, and when information was laid against them, those who got wind of
it and succeeded in getting away, seventy-eight in number, seized cleavers and
spits from some kitchen and sallied out. On the road they fell in with wagons
conveying gladiators' weapons to another city; these they plundered and armed
themselves. Then they took up a strong position and elected three leaders. The
first of these was Spartacus, a Thracian of Nomadic stock, possessed not only
of great courage and strength, but also in sagacity and culture superior to his
fortune, and more Hellenic than Thracian.

3 It is said that when he was first
brought to Rome to be sold, a serpent was seen coiled about his face as he
slept, and his wife, who was of the same tribe as Spartacus, a prophetess, and
subject to visitations of the Dionysiac frenzy, declared it the sign of a great
and formidable power which would attend him to a fortunate issue. This woman
shared in his escape and was then living with him.

1
To begin with, the gladiators repulsed the soldiers who came against them from
Capua, and getting hold of many arms of real warfare, they gladly took these in
exchange for their own, casting away their gladiatorial weapons as dishonorable
and barbarous. Then Clodius the praetor was sent out from Rome against them
with three thousand soldiers, and laid siege to them on a hill which had but
one ascent, and that a narrow and difficult one, which Clodius closely watched;

2 everywhere else there were smooth and precipitous
cliffs. But the top of the hill was covered with a wild vine of abundant
growth, from which the besieged cut off the serviceable branches, and wove
these into strong ladders of such strength and length that when they were
fastened at the top they reached along the face of the cliff to the plain
below. On these they descended safely, all but one man, who remained above to
attend to the arms. When the rest had got down, he began to drop the arms, and
after he had thrown them all down, got away himself also last of all in safety.

3 Of all this the Romans were ignorant,
and therefore their enemy surrounded them, threw them into consternation by the
suddenness of the attack, put them to flight, and took their camp. They were
also joined by many of the herdsmen and shepherds of the region, sturdy men and
swift of foot, some of whom they armed fully, and employed others as scouts and
light infantry.

4 In the second
place, Publius Varinus, the praetor, was sent out against them, whose
lieutenant, a certain Furius, with two thousand soldiers, they first engaged
and routed; then Spartacus narrowly watched the movements of Cossinius, who had
been sent out with a large force to advise and assist Varinus in the command,
and came near seizing him as he was bathing near Salinae.

5 Cossinius barely escaped with much
difficulty, and Spartacus at once seized his baggage, pressed hard upon him in
pursuit, and took his camp with great slaughter. Cossinius also fell. By
defeating the praetor himself in many battles, and finally capturing his
lictors and the very horse he rode, Spartacus was soon great and formidable;
but he took a proper view of the situation, and since he could not expect to
overcome the Roman power, began to lead his army toward the Alps, thinking it
necessary for them to cross the mountains and go to their respective homes,
some to Thrace, and some to Gaul.

6 But his men were now strong in numbers
and full of confidence, and would not listen to him, but went ravaging over
Italy.

It
was now no longer the indignity and disgrace of the revolt that harassed the
senate, but they were constrained by their fear and peril to send both consuls
into the field, as they would to a war of the utmost difficulty and magnitude.

7 Gellius, one of the consuls, fell
suddenly upon the Germans, who were so insolent and bold as to separate
themselves from the main body of Spartacus, and cut them all to pieces; but
when Lentulus, the other consul, had surrounded the enemy with large forces,
Spartacus rushed upon them, joined battle, defeated the legates of Lentulus,
and seized all their baggage. Then, as he was forcing his way towards the Alps,
he was met by Cassius, the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, with an army of ten
thousand men, and in the battle that ensued, Cassius was defeated, lost many
men, and escaped himself with difficulty.

1
On learning of this, the Senate angrily ordered the consuls to keep quiet, and
chose Crassus to conduct the war, and many of the nobles were induced by his
reputation and their friendship for him to serve under him. Crassus himself,
accordingly, took position on the borders of Picenum, expecting to receive the
attack of Spartacus, who was hastening thither; and he sent Mummius, his legate,
with two legions, by a circuitous route, with orders to follow the enemy, but
not to join battle nor even to skirmish with them.

2 Mummius, however, at the first
promising opportunity, gave battle and was defeated; many of his men were
slain, and many of them threw away their arms and fled for their lives. Crassus gave Mummius himself a rough reception, and when he
armed his soldiers anew, made them give pledges that they would keep their
arms. Five hundred of them, moreover, who had shown the
greatest cowardice and been first to fly, he divided into fifty decades, and
put to death one from each decade, on whom the lot fell, thus reviving, after
the lapse of many years, an ancient mode of punishing the soldiers.

3 For disgrace also attaches to
this manner of death, and many horrible and repulsive features attend the
punishment, which the whole army witnesses.

When
he had thus disciplined his men, he led them against the enemy. But Spartacus
avoided him, and retired through Lucania to the sea. At the Straits, he chanced
upon some Cilician pirate craft, and determined to seize Sicily. By throwing
two thousand men into the island, he thought to kindle anew the servile war
there,which had not long been extinguished, and needed only a little additional
fuel.

4 But the Cilicians, after coming
to terms with him and receiving his gifts, deceived him and sailed away. So
Spartacus marched back again from the sea and established his army in the
peninsula of Rhegium. Crassus now came up, and observing that the nature of the
place suggested what must be done, he determined to build a wall across the
isthmus, thereby at once keeping his soldiers from idleness, and his enemies
from provisions.

5 Now the task was a huge one and
difficult, but he accomplished and finished it, contrary to all expectation, in
a short, running a ditch from sea to sea through the neck of land •three
hundred furlongs in length and fifteen feet in width and depth alike. Above the
ditch he also built a wall of astonishing height and strength.

6 All this work Spartacus
neglected and despised at first; but soon his provisions began to fail, and
when he wanted to sally forth from the peninsula, he saw that he was walled in,
and that there was nothing more to be had there. He therefore waited for a
snowy night and a wintry storm, when he filled up a small portion of the ditch
with earth and timber and the boughs of trees, and so threw a third part of his
force across.

1
Crassus was now in fear lest some impulse to march upon Rome should seize
Spartacus, but took heart when he saw that many of the gladiator's men had
seceded after a quarrel with him, and were encamped by themselves on a Lucanian
lake. This lake, they say, changes from time to time in the character of its
water, becoming sweet, and then again bitter and undrinkable. Upon this
detachment Crassus fell, and drove them away from the lake, but he was robbed
of the slaughter and pursuit of the fugitives by the sudden appearance of
Spartacus, who checked their flight.

2 Before this
Crassus had written to the senate that they must summon Lucullus from Thrace and
Pompey from Spain, but he was sorry now that he had done so, and was eager to
bring the war to an end before those generals came. He knew that the success
would be ascribed to the one who came up with assistance, and not to himself.
Accordingly, in the first place, he determined to attack those of the enemy who
had seceded from the rest and were campaigning on their own account (they were
commanded by Caius Canicius “Gannicus” and Castus), and with this in view, sent
out six thousand men to preoccupy a certain eminence, bidding them keep their
attempt a secret.

3 And they did try to elude
observation by covering up their helmets, but they were seen by two women who
were sacrificing for the enemy, and would have been in peril of their lives had
not Crassus quickly made his appearance and given battle, the most stubbornly
contested of all; for although he slew twelve thousand three hundred men in it,
he found only two who were wounded in the back. The rest all died standing in
the ranks and fighting the Romans.

4 After the
defeat of this detachment, Spartacus retired to the mountains of Petelia,
followed closely by Quintus, one of the officers of Crassus, and by Scrophas,
the quaestor, who hung upon the enemy's rear. But when Spartacus faced about,
there was a great rout of the Romans, and they barely managed to drag the
quaestor, who had been wounded, away into safety. This success was the ruin of
Spartacus, for it filled his slaves with over-confidence.

5 They would no longer consent to
avoid battle, and would not even obey their leaders, but surrounded them as
soon as they began to march, with arms in their hands, and forced them to lead
back through Lucania against the Romans, the very thing which Crassus also most
desired. For Pompey's approach was already announced, and there were not a few
who publicly proclaimed that the victory in this war belonged to him; he had
only to come and fight and put an end to the war. Crassus, therefore, pressed
on to finish the struggle himself, and having encamped near the enemy, began to
dig a trench. Into this the slaves leaped and began to fight with those who
were working there,

6 and since fresh men from both
sides kept coming to help their comrades, Spartacus saw the necessity that was
upon him, and drew up his whole army in order of battle.

In
the first place, when his horse was brought to him, he drew his sword, and
saying that if he won the day he would have many fine horses of the enemy's,
but if he lost it he did not want any, he slew his horse. Then pushing his way towards
Crassus himself through many flying weapons and wounded men, he did not indeed
reach him, but slew two centurions who fell upon him together.

7 Finally, after his companions
had taken to flight, he stood alone, surrounded by a multitude of foes, and was
still defending himself when he was cut down. But although Crassus had been
fortunate, had shown most excellent generalship, and had exposed his person to
danger, nevertheless, his success did not fail to enhance the reputation of
Pompey. For the fugitives from the battle encountered that general and were cut
to pieces, so he could write to the senate that in open battle, indeed, Crassus
had conquered the slaves, but that he himself had extirpated the war.

8 Pompey, accordingly, for his victories
over Sertorius and in Spain, celebrated a splendid triumph; but Crassus, for
all his self-approval, did not venture to ask for the major triumph, and it was
thought ignoble and mean in him to celebrate even the minor triumph on foot,
called the ovation, for a servile war. How the minor triumph differs from the
major, and why it is named as it is, has been told in my life of Marcellus.

When
Marcus Crassus had constructed a ditch around the forces of Spartacus, the
latter at night filled it with the bodies of prisoners and cattle that he had
slain, and thus marched across it.

The
same Spartacus, when besieged on the slopes of Vesuvius at the point where the
mountain was steepest and on that account unguarded, plaited ropes of osiers
from the woods. Letting himself down by these, he not only made his escape, but
by appearing in another quarter struck such terror into Clodius that several
cohorts gave way before a force of only seventy-four gladiators.

This Spartacus, when
enveloped by the troops of the proconsul Publius Varinius, placed stakes at
short intervals before the gate of the camp; then setting up corpses, dressed
in clothes and furnished with weapons, he tied these to the stakes to give the
appearance of sentries when viewed from a distance. He also lighted fires
throughout the whole camp. Deceiving the enemy by this empty show, Spartacus by
night silently led out his troops.

Book VII (How to conceal the Absence of the Things we
lack, or to supply Substitutes for Them)

Spartacus and
his troops had shields made of osiers and covered with hides.

116 At the same time
Spartacus, a Thracian by birth, who had once served as a soldier with the
Romans, but had since been a prisoner and sold for a gladiator, and was in the
gladiatorial training-school at Capua, persuaded about seventy of his comrades
to strike for their own freedom rather than for the amusement of spectators.
They overcame the guards and ran away, arming themselves with clubs and daggers
that they took from people on the roads, and took refuge on Mount Vesuvius.
There many fugitive slaves and even some freemen from the fields joined
Spartacus, and he plundered the neighboring country, having for subordinate
officers two gladiators named Oenomaus and Crixus. As he divided the plunder
impartially he soon had plenty of men. Varinius Glaber was first sent against
him and afterwards Publius Valerius, not with regular armies, but with forces
picked up in haste and at random, for the Romans did not consider this a war
yet, but a raid, something like an attack of robbery. They attacked Spartacus
and were beaten. Spartacus even captured the horse of Varinius; so narrowly did
the very general of the Romans escape being captured by a gladiator.
After this still greater numbers flocked to Spartacus
till his army numbered 70,000. For these he manufactured weapons and collected
equipment, whereas Rome now sent out the consuls with two legions.

117 One of them overcame
Crixus with 30,000 men near Mount Garganus, two-thirds of whom perished
together with himself. Spartacus endeavored to make his way through the
Apennines to the Alps and the Gallic country, but one of the consuls
anticipated him and hindered his flight while the other hung upon his rear. He
turned upon them one after the other and beat them in detail. They retreated in
confusion in different directions. Spartacus sacrificed 300 Roman prisoners to
the shade of Crixus, and marched on Rome with 120,000 foot, having burned all
his useless material, killed all his prisoners, and butchered his pack-animals
in order to expedite his movement. Many deserters offered themselves to him,
but he would not accept them. The consuls again met him in the country of
Picenum. Here there was fought another great battle and there was, too, another
great defeat for the Romans. Spartacus changed his intention of marching on Rome.
He did not consider himself ready as yet for that kind of a fight, as his whole
force was not suitably armed, for no city had joined him, but only slaves,
deserters, and riff-raff. However, he occupied the mountains around Thurii and
took the city itself. He prohibited the bringing in of gold or silver by
merchants, and would not allow his own men to acquire any, but he bought
largely of iron and brass and did not interfere with those who dealt in these
articles. Supplied with abundant material from this source his men provided
themselves with plenty of arms and made frequent forays for the time being.
When they next came to an engagement with the Romans they were again
victorious, and returned laden with spoils.

118 this war, so formidable
to the Romans (although ridiculed and despised in the beginning, as being
merely the work of gladiators), had now lasted three years. When the election
of new praetors came on, fear fell upon all, and nobody offered himself as a
candidate until Licinius Crassus, a man distinguished among the Romans for
birth and wealth, assumed the praetorship and marched against Spartacus with
six new legions. When he arrived at his destination he received also the two
legions of the consuls, whom he decimated by lot for their bad conduct in
several battles. Some say that Crassus, too, having engaged in battle with his
whole army, and having been defeated, decimated the whole army and was not
deterred by their numbers, but destroyed about 4000 of them. Whichever way it
was, when he had once demonstrated to them that he was more dangerous to them
than the enemy, he overcame immediately 10,000 of the Spartacans, who were
encamped somewhere in a detached position, and killed two-thirds of them. He
then marched boldly against Spartacus himself, vanquished him in a brilliant
engagement, and pursued his fleeing forces to the sea, where they tried to pass
over to Sicily. He overtook them and enclosed them with a line of
circumvallation consisting of ditch, wall, and paling.

119 Spartacus tried to break through and make an incursion
into the Samnite country, but Crassus slew about 6000 of his men in the morning
and as many more towards evening. Only three of the Roman army were killed and
seven wounded, so great was the improvement in their moral inspired by
the recent punishment. Spartacus, who was expecting a reinforcement of horse
from somewhere, no longer went into battle with his whole army, but harassed
the besiegers by frequent sallies here and there. He fell upon them
unexpectedly and continually, threw bundles of fagots into the ditch and set
them on fire and made their labor difficult. He also crucified a Roman prisoner
in the space between the two armies to show his own men what fate awaited them
if they did not conquer. But when the Romans in the city heard of the siege
they thought it would be disgraceful if this war against gladiators should be
prolonged. Believing also that the work still to be done against Spartacus was
great and severe they ordered up the army of Pompey, which had just arrived
from Spain, as reinforcement.

120 On account of this vote Crassus tried in every way to come
to an engagement with Spartacus so that Pompey might not reap the glory of the
war. Spartacus himself, thinking to anticipate Pompey, invited Crassus to come
to terms with him. When his proposals were rejected with scorn he resolved to
risk a battle, and as his cavalry had arrived he made a dash with his whole
army through the lines of the besieging force and pushed on to Brundusium with
Crassus in pursuit. When Spartacus learned that Lucullus had just arrived in
Brundusium from his victory over Mithridates he despaired of everything and
brought his forces, which were even then very numerous, to close quarters with
Crassus. The battle was long and bloody, as might have been expected with so
many thousands of desperate men. Spartacus was wounded in the thigh with a
spear and sank upon his knee, holding his shield in front of him and contending
in this way against his assailants until he and the great mass of those with
him were surrounded and slain. The Roman loss was about 1000. The body of
Spartacus was not found. A large number of his men fled from the battle-field
to the mountains and Crassus followed them thither. They divided themselves in
four parts, and continued to fight until they all perished except 6000, who
were captured and crucified along the whole road from Capua to Rome.

121 Crassus accomplished his task within six months, whence
arose a contention for honours between himself and Pompey. Crassus did not
dismiss his army, for Pompey did not dismiss his. Both were candidates for the
consulship. Crassus had been praetor as the law of Sulla required. Pompey had
been neither praetor nor quaestor, and was only thirty-four years old, but he
had promised the tribunes of the people that much of their former power should
be restored. When they were chosen consuls they did not even then dismiss their
armies, which were stationed near the city. Each one offered an excuse. Pompey
said that he was waiting the return of Metellus for his Spanish triumph;
Crassus said that Pompey ought to dismiss his army first. The people, seeing fresh seditions brewing and
fearing two armies encamped round about, besought the consuls, while they were
occupying the curule chairs in the forum, to be reconciled to each other; but
at first both of them repelled these solicitations. When, however, certain
persons, who seemed prophetically inspired, predicted many direful consequences
if the consuls did not come to an agreement, the people again implored them
with lamentations and the greatest dejection, reminding them of the evils
produced by the contentions of Marius and Sulla. Crassus yielded first. He came
down from his chair, advanced to Pompey, and offered him his hand in the way of
reconciliation. Pompey rose and hastened to meet him. They shook hands amid
general acclamations and the people did not leave the assembly until the
consuls had given orders in writing to disband their armies. Thus was the
well-grounded fear of another great dissension happily dispelled. This was
about the sixtieth year in the course of the civil convulsions, reckoning from
the death of Tiberius Gracchus.

We may, however, support the dishonor of a war with
slaves, for though they are, by their circumstances, subjected to all kinds of
treatment, they are yet, as it were, a second class of men, and may be admitted
to the enjoyment of liberty with ourselves. But the war raised by the efforts
of Spartacus I know not what name to call, for the soldiers in it were slaves,
and the commanders gladiators; the former being persons of the meanest
condition, and the latter men of the worst character, and adding to the
calamity of their profession by its contemptibleness. Spartacus, Crixus, and
Oenomaus, breaking out of the fencing school of Lentulus, escaped from Capua,
with not more than thirty of the same occupation, and, having called the slaves
to their standard, and collected a force of more than ten thousand men, were
not content with merely having escaped, but were eager to take vengeance on
their masters. The first theatre for action that attracted them was Mount
Vesuvius. Here, being besieged by Clodius Glaber, they slid down a passage in
the hollow part of the mountain, by means of ropes made of vine-branches, and penetrated
to the very bottom of it; when, issuing forth by an outlet apparently
impracticable, they captured, by a sudden attack, the camp of the Roman
general, who expected no molestation. They afterwards took other camps, and
spread themselves to Cora, and through the whole of Campania. Not content with
plundering the country seats and villages, they ravaged, with terrible
devastation, Nola and Nuceria, Thurii and Metapontum. Being joined with new
forces day after day and forming themselves into a regular army, they made
themselves, out of osiers and beasts' hides, a rude kind of shields, and out of
the iron from the slave-houses forged swords and other weapons. And that
nothing proper might be wanting to the complement of the army, they procured
cavalry by breaking in the herds of horses that came in their way, and
conferred upon their leader the ensigns and fasces that they took from the
praetors. Nor did he, who of a mercenary Thracian had become a Roman soldier,
of a soldier a deserter and robber, and afterwards, from consideration of his strength,
a gladiator, refuse to receive them. He afterwards, indeed, celebrated the
funerals of his own officers, who died in battle, with the obsequies of Roman
generals, and obliged the prisoners to fight with arms at their funeral piles,
just as if he could atone for all past dishonors by becoming, from a gladiator,
an exhibitor of shows of gladiators. Engaging next with the armies of the
consuls, he cut to pieces that of Lentulus, near the Apennines, and destroyed
the camp of Caius Cassius at Mutina. Elated by which success, he deliberated
(which is sufficient disgrace for us) about assailing the city of Rome. At
length an effort was made against this swordsman with the whole force of the
empire, and Licinius Crassus avenged the honor of Rome, by whom the enemies (I
am ashamed to call them so) being routed and put to flight, betook themselves
to the furthest parts of Italy. Here, being shut up in a corner in Bruttium,
and attempting to escape into Sicily, but having no ships, and having in vain
tried, on the swift current of the strait, to sail on rafts made of hurdles and
casks tied together with twigs, they at last sallied forth, and died a death
worthy of men. As was fitting under a gladiator captain, they fought without
sparing themselves. Spartacus himself, fighting with the utmost bravery in the
front of the battle, fell as became their general.

24.
In the six hundred and seventy-ninth year of the City and during the consulship
of Lucullus and Cassius, seventy-four gladiators escaped from the training school
of Cnaeus Lentulus at Capua. Under the leadership of Crixus and Oenomaus, who
were Gauls, and of Spartacus, a Thracian, the fugitives occupied Mount
Vesuvius. From there they later sallied forth and captured the camp of the
praetor Clodius, who had previously surrounded and besieged them. After forcing
Clodius to flee, the fugitives concentrated their entire attention on
plundering. Marching by way of Consentia and Metapontum, they collected huge
forces in a short time. Crixus had an army of ten thousand according to report,
and Spartacus had three times that number. Oenomaus had previously been killed
in an earlier battle.

While
the fugitives were throwing everything into confusion by massacres,
conflagrations, thefts, and attacks upon women, they gave a gladiatorial
exhibition at the funeral of a captured woman who had taken her own life in
grief over her outraged honor. They formed a band of gladiators out of the
four hundred captives. Indeed, those who formerly had been participants in the
spectacle were now to be the spectators, but as the trainers of gladiators
rather than as the commanders of troops. The consuls Gellius and Lentulus were
dispatched with an army against these fugitives. Gellius overcame Crixus in
battle, though the latter fought with great bravery; Lentulus, however, was
defeated and put to flight by Spartacus. Later the consuls joined forces, but
to no avail, and after suffering a severe defeat both took to flight. Then this
same Spartacus killed the proconsul C. Cassius after defeating him in battle.

The
City now became almost as terrified as she had been when Hannibal was raging
about her gates. The Senate at once dispatched Crassus with the legions of the
consuls and with fresh reinforcements. Crassus quickly engaged the fugitives in
battle, slew six thousand of them, but captured only nine hundred. Before
advancing against Spartacus in person, who was laying out his camp at the head
of the Silarus River,Crassus defeated the Gallic and German auxiliaries of
Spartacus and slaughtered thirty thousand of them together with their leaders.
Finally he encountered Spartacus. After drawing up his battle line, he killed
most of the forces of the fugitives as well as Spartacus himself. Sixty
thousand, according to report, were slain and six thousand captured, while
three thousand Roman citizens were recovered. The remaining gladiators, who had
escaped from this battle and were wandering at large, were gradually killed off
by many generals who constantly pursued them.

But
I myself repeat again and again: do the times really need at this point to be
made the subject of any comparison? Who, I ask, does not shudder to hear, I do
not say of such wars, but of such titles of wars—foreign, servile, wars with
allies, civil, and fugitive wars? Moreover, these wars do not follow one
another like the stormy waves of the sea, however great their force may be, but
these waves of strife, stirred up by various causes, pretexts, forms, and evils
arising on all sides and heaped together into a mass, dash upon one another. I
now take up where I left off and cease my discussion of that notorious Slave
War.

The
thunders of the Jugurthine War from Africa had not yet been stilled when from
the northwest the lightning bolts of the Cimbrian War were hurled. In addition to
the vast and horrible torrents of blood raining down from those Cimbrian
clouds, Italy in her misery was now sending forth the clouds of the Social War
destined to merge into a great storm of evils. Furthermore, after the endless
and repeated storms of the Italian War, one could not travel in safety
throughout Italy. All the inhabitants except the people of hostile cities, most
dangerous whirlpools I might call them, were reeling about as a result of an
insecure and hazardous peace. Rome was at that time in the throes of giving
birth to the Marian and Cinnan conflagration, while another, the Mithridatic,
was threatening from a different direction, the east and north. This
Mithridatic War started, to be sure, from troubles of an earlier period, but
flared up again in later times. The funeral pyre of the Sullan disaster was set
ablaze by the Marian torch; from that pyre of the Sullan and Civil War, which
was so destructive, flames were scattered throughout most of the parts of the
earth and many conflagrations spread from this one blaze. Lepidus and Scipio in
Italy, Brutus in Gaul, Domitius, the son-in-law of Cinna, in Africa, Carbo in
Cossura and Sicily, Perperna in Liguria, and later Sertorius in Spain—he was
the most dangerous of them all in that same Spain—stirred up civil wars, or
whatever name these wars should be called, causing many other wars to arise,
all from that one war. Apart from those three vast wars which at that time were
called "foreign", that is, the Pamphylian, the Macedonian, and the
Dalmatian, there was also that great Mithridatic War, which, though by far the
longest, the most dangerous, and most formidable of all, long kept its true
character concealed. After this, but before the end of the Sertorian War in
Spain and while Sertorius was still living, that war against the fugitive
slaves and, in order to express myself more accurately, that war against the
gladiators, sent forth its horrors that were not to be seen only by a few but
were to be feared everywhere. Although it was called a war against fugitives,
one cannot judge its importance by the name; in that war frequently one consul
and occasionally both consuls who had joined forces in vain, were defeated and
a great number of nobles slain, but so far as the fugitives themselves were concerned,
they lost more than one hundred thousand. Hence we must bear in mind that Italy
has reason to find consolation when she compares the sufferings incurred by the
present foreign war with the recollection of past wars begun by herself and
directed against herself and of wars that tore to pieces her very being in a
manner incomparably more cruel.